DARTMOUTH — It's the 1860s and baseball is as unfamiliar a game as cricket is to Americans today.

For one thing, there is no protective gear. And there's a weird camaraderie among the teams in a way that would be very foreign to professional baseball. But that's just how the audience and the players seemed to like it Sunday on Concordia Boatyard's open field.

About 50 people gathered with picnic baskets and beach chairs to watch a fast-moving old-time baseball game between the Bristol Blues and the Hingham Coopers at 2 p.m., despite bouts of rain.

"I like the sportsmanship of it, there's not a lot of arguing and the guys shake hands," he said of the game.

"It's fun to play and it doesn't require a special field," said Ray Shaw from Westport, who is a fan and photographer of the vintage game. He pointed out some odd rules — it's one ball per game "so it gets progressively softer," the batter has to stop at every base and can't run to first base directly, the pitcher can only toss the ball underhand, and it's still an out if a fielder catches the ball on a bounce.

"There's a lot of action on the field. It's not a batter and a pitcher game," he said.

Playing five years, Coopers pitcher "Mad Dog" Madden said it's a game for men, when asked why they don't use gloves.

Players and spectators said it was really fun.

"It's interesting to see them do things in an old-fashioned way. It's just totally different," said Angela Denham from Little Compton, Rhode Island, Simmons' mother.

Nicole Jackman picked up one of the old-time baseballs on the sidelines and examined it. "Huh, it's different, like leather almost," she said.

"I've never seen a bat like this," said her son Roger Jackman, 8, as he inspected an old bat. When asked to describe how so, the Little Leaguer said, "I play with an aluminum bat, this is wood. The bunting is pretty big. It's pretty long and heavy too."

"This is a gentleman's sport. There's no bickering," he said. "We play as competitively as we can, but we try to uphold the sportsmanship of the game."

"I like how different it is from normal baseball," said Charlie Simmons, 11, Simmons' son, who said he wants to join the team once he's 15.

His friend John Correiro, 12, attended for the first time and commented on how different the game was, too: "It's like baseball but it's really not."

"It's totally a hitter's game," said Emmett MacGregor, 11. "Unlike Major League Baseball, where the object is to strike them out."

A group of three girls from Dartmouth kept score on a blackboard. They said they liked that players were nicer to each other. Here, there were no "long arguments" or rudeness, but in major leagues, "They really don't like each other," agreed Elizabeth Simmons, 7, Cally Garth, 10 and Avery MacGregor, 10.